harry flatters

Simple; don't create a demand for them in the first place, isn't it obvious!

The amount of posts I make is none of your concern, and if you're going to use big words at least try to spell them correctly.

harry flatters

You've obviously been conditioned to associate them with caged environments then.

PeteBrant

Well, yes. Same with Gerbils. I mean, I think thats a fairly common western world view.

Guinea Pigs are slightly different, I've seen those "wild" and being eaten.

Quite particular to Gerbil and Hamster though - I mean I don't associate rats, snakes, lizards or spiders, to cages.

Budgerigars I associate with cages, but then they are pretty indeginous to Australia in the wild aren't they?

urban

iTrader: (1)

Yes, I agree.

Bit like prison I suppose

Prisoner gets locked up, is fed & watered, has a bed, is kept warm and has stuff to play with too.
Things like XBOX, PS3 etc.

Shaun

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

He is trolling, leave the strange one alone.

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

aaaand if your trying to induce arguments via trolling and pathetic threads...

at least try and be original

harry flatters

I think if you actually look through this thread you'll find the only trolling coming from you and chris, and its both unwanted and univited, everyone else has been happy discussing the topic in question.

Now go and troll some other threads, and if you keep trolling this one you're just showing your true colours.

Lisawrx

iTrader: (1)

Why can't people here just have a reasonable discussion? I for one quite enjoy a healthy debate, and as much as this is a topic, which people on both sides of the fence won't agree, it's been interesting. I just truely don't get why people who don't agree have to resort to having a pop at each other.

Play nice peeps.

Coffin Dodger

He's delusional

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

ok. im not the one with multiple aliases though am i? or the one with active infraction points for whatever...


imho, in answer to your first question i dont personally think it is mean/cruel/inhumane to keep these creatures as is in a cage. my opinion is based around the following...

1.they are born into this caged habitat thus know nothing different
2.a little research shows that regardless of space they dont "solcialise" with each other that much unless mating, so being kept alone isnt an issue (referring to hamsters of the sirian and russian dwarf family here)
3.if indeed it was that awful surely it would have been banned by the powers that be (in a pc britain we currently live in)
4.if cared for and looked after, whats to say they dont have a happy life?
5.re. point 1., if so many generations of these rodents have been bred for pets, surely the evolutionary theory comes into play (ie they adjust and become at home with this type of surrounding).

no. 5 i think is a valid point, if you look at human evolution.


so on the basis of the above, i have no issue with keeping small rodents (probably hamsters due to ellergic reactions to fur), in a properly sized, regurlarly cleaned "caged" habitat.

theres your answer, thats all i have to say, as heaven forbid i couldnt live with the inditement of trolling from your good self

harry flatters

I think the question sits over morals, namely our own moral responsibility to others including animals. Is it right for us to cage them for our own self amusement rather than letting them exist as nature intended, and I agree about the whole 'in the wild they wouldn't last long' theory, but again is that our responsibility to change?

You talk about evolution of a species, but by removing these creatures from their habitat are we not interfering with that process?

PeteBrant

I'm not sure the evolutionary process takes place over a few hundred years (if that?)

More like a few million.

harry flatters

Knowing how you like to be factual can you substantiate that remark or was it off the cuff, again?

Lisawrx

iTrader: (1)

Are we not doing that regardless of what animal or environment we are talking about?

Ultimately, every animal we keep as a household pet, has in fact been removed at some point in time, from it's original enviroment. Regardless of whether we are caging some, or merely housing others, it's not as nature intended it, so therefore, where do we draw the line as to what's ok and what's not?

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

i personally dont keep these pets fr personal amusement. i dont really know the answer to why me and my other half keep them, probably as we like pets and cant have other pets for previously mentioned reasons.

second part... i dont think we are. evolution doesnt just necessarily mean natural evolution does it? if you look deeper into it, man made evolution is taking place, so again that could then come under the moral responsibility.

either way with many many generations of these little critters knowing nothing other than a caged habitat, i again wouldnt think of it as cruel, unless kept in terrible conditions. that question i suppose would be asked to the originator of caged hamsters < an imposibility unfortunaltey.

harry flatters

Good point, the problem that's surfacing here is "is there a line" in the first place, which we know to be yes, but what's the driver behind making the decision over whats acceptable and whats not.

i.e. Why a mouse and Why not a cat.

Why do we create natural environments in zoo's yet insist on using £10 cages in our own homes?

PeteBrant

Well you would need to lock up several hundred generations of rodent in cages before you saw any effect on their evolution.

And you would have to breed them specifically of course - No outside interference.

I mean for example, you would expect, in time, to see a budgies wings become redundant eventually, but it would take thousands of years.

What I saying is that I don't beleive that we have kept rodents as pets long enough, nor bred them specifically enough to have had an effect on their evolution.

PeteBrant

There is ,of course, a litmus test for whether it is wrong to cage something.

If you take , say, one side of the cage away, does it leave its caged environment? If the answer is yes, it probably doesn't like being caged all that much.

Lisawrx

iTrader: (1)

Most people don't have enough space at home to try and create a more natural environment, I suppose.

Thing is you say, why a mouse, but not a cat. Well to a point by keeping a cat indoors as some may well do, we are doing it to cats as well on a slightly different scale, as in the house becomes the cage for the cat, as an actual cage is the rodents 'house' if you get me. In terms of size, a cage will be a large area to a tiny rodent, yet a cat may feel trapped in a house if not let out.

Would it be ok then, to keep a rodent, if given the run of the house? Just leave the cage open so it can come and go as it pleases, not too dis-similar to having a dog/cat bed.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

I have decided, Rat Fans, after much deliberation, that on a scale of one to ten, my level of give a F*ck when it comes to caged rodents is somewhere around zero, has anyone thought Hamsters are reincarnated Paedos, brought back to be molested by kids by way of Karma ?

So all in all a pointless thread, and I think that the Sh1tty arsed, smelly, vicous, biting, yellow toothed, solitary none entities don't matter.

Neither do the Rodents...

Coffin Dodger

Ohhh get her

Edit: 1000 posts

ScoobyWon't

It's OK, Snazy's back

Devildog

I'm with you on the general issue.

I suspect the general answer to your question is simply "economics" and "because we can"

Ultimately it is wrong to keep any animal caged, Irrespective of the size of that cage. Birds especially. And fish too.

But the human race does that. Because we think we have a right to do so.

We've got a Chinchilla along with the dogs. She was rescued from a breeding farm by the RSPCA. She lives in a cage that was the thick end of £120. She's well fed, watered and looked after. She gets out of her cage daily to run around - and she always goes back in without influence from us, entirely of her own free will.

I would rather she was running wild in the South American mountains, but of course as captive bred she wouldn't see the day out.

Have I had caged pets in the past - yes. Would I buy one now - no. Why? because animals shouldn't be caged.

Would I take on a rescue animal to give it a better life than it was otherwise having - absolutely.